Free art in Santa Fe.

I'm writing this on Friday because this weekend is the Spring Festival at El Rancho de las Golondrinas and I'll be volunteering in the dye shed all day Sunday. Here's hoping I don't have to amend this post with comments about some crazy thing or other out of Washington.

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I feel fortunate that my last couple of jobs have been in virtual art galleries -- and by "virtual", I don't mean iPads or something, I mean actual art on the walls. At the New Mexico State Capitol, aka the Roundhouse, where I work now, the art is open to the public, plus there are a couple of spots that feature rotating exhibitions. And it's all free, which you can't say about the other museums in town (ahem).

When you first come in the east side visitor's entrance (which is all torn up right now due to construction, but if you go around the fencing, you can get in through the ADA-accessible door on the left), if you go straight ahead, you'll see a cool textile exhibit by local artists. 

This first piece fascinates me; it's called Patches of Blue, and it's by Michelle Jackson. She must have stitched the squares together on tear-away interfacing. Presumably someone could wear the jacket. I mean, it wouldn't fit me, but someone could wear it. 

Lynne Cantwell 2026

Then there's this piece. It's called Frisky, and it's by Stephanie Lerma. I saw them bringing it in when the exhibit first opened; it's at least four feet wide by four feet tall, and I thought then that it wouldn't be out of place at Meow Wolf across town. 

Lynne Cantwell 2026

That's just a taste -- there are a bunch more cool pieces. This exhibit will be up through December.

If you go back to the entrance and take the elevator up to the fourth floor, you'll be at the governor's office. There's a little rotating gallery behind the reception desk. A couple of years ago, I posted about an exhibit there of sci-fi-related stuff from the New Mexico Museum of Space History. The current exhibit features pieces from the collection of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, some of which have never been on display. I love this one: it's by Frank Buffalo Hyde (Onondaga/Nez Perce), and it's called Buffalo Fields Forever: To Infinity and Beyond. It just strikes me as quintessentially New Mexico.

Lynne Cantwell 2026

One more: This bronze statue is by Estella Loretto (Jemez Pueblo), and it's called Morning Prayer. (She's the same artist who created Earth Mother, the statue outside the Roundhouse that I use for my Facebook avatar when the legislature is in session.)

Lynne Cantwell 2026

This exhibit moves out sometime mid to late next month, so if you're interested, you'd best get a move on. But even if you miss it, you can tour all the art hanging on the walls in the public areas. And did I mention it's free?

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My summer reading challenge is moving right along. I'll have an update on that next weekend.

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These moments of artistic blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay cool!

Solstice musings.

 Happy winter solstice! Blessed Yule! 

Yurumi | Deposit Photos

Today is the day with the smallest number of minutes of daylight this year. From here on, the days get longer. It'll still be cold, but at least we'll have a fraction of an hour longer each day to experience it.

Tigs and I are having a less-than-chill Yule. This morning, I abandoned him to attend a winter solstice event at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture here in Santa Fe. The guy who was supposed to give the solstice blessing couldn't make it due to car trouble, but I did see the sun's first rays peek out around the mountains behind the museum. 

Lynne Cantwell | 12/21/25

That's either Sun Mountain or Moon Mountain. Pretty sure it's Moon Mountain. But don't quote me.

Anyway, I had time to see the newest exhibits, buy a 2026 wall calendar (yes, I am so old that I still use a wall calendar, thanks), and see part of a performance by a troupe of dancers from Acoma Pueblo before rushing home to let in a worker to reassemble part of my deck. The guys who built it used finishing nails or staples or something not very sturdy, anyhow, to attach the fascia boards below the banco seat, and they literally fell off this past week.

How it started. Then it fell off entirely.
Lynne Cantwell 2025

Tigs was a little too interested in the gap; it wasn't wide enough for him to get his head in, but it wouldn't stop him from trying -- so it needed to be re-fastened. With screws this time.

It's done now, but it did throw a crimp into my morning.

Anyway, as soon as I write and post this, we'll have the rest of the day and evening. Dinner will be pork tenderloin, mashed cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts with Parmesan (thanks, Trader Joe's!). Might watch a movie tonight; I meant to rewatch The Princess Bride after Rob Reiner's death earlier this month and haven't done it yet, so that's a possibility. We'll see.

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Two things I wanted to comment on, though, before I'm off to pursue frivolity. 

1) Earlier this month, although I just saw it today, the Washington Post ran a story about how religious leaders are seeing a trend among people in their 20s returning to religion -- and not necessarily the religion they were brought up in.  That's a gift link, if you care to read the story. Two things struck me:

• Although the story highlights Catholicism, the writer mentions that "esoteric" religions like Wicca are drawing new members, too. The point -- although it may be largely anecdotal and is never explicitly stated -- is that these young folks are turning away from mainline Protestantism and evangelical Christianity because they're not finding the answers there that they need.
• Then there's the woman who is joining a Catholic church based apparently on some erroneous assumptions. "Because the Catholic Church is the church Jesus Christ started, the teachings stay consistent over thousands of years," she says. Well, um, no. Jesus didn't start the Catholic church; his followers did, or the followers of his followers. St. Paul did as much to push the Gospels as anybody, and he had never even met Jesus (although he said he heard Jesus' voice in a revelation on the road to Damascus, and because we're so close to Christmas, I will refrain from mentioning how such a claim would be met today). Her idea that the "teachings stay consistent" is also wrong, of course; one example is the first Council of Nicaea, which decided which gospels to canonize in the Bible and which to throw out. But okay -- this woman is young. She'll learn.

2)  Sometimes the Mensa newsletter has some interesting links, like this one to a Psychology Today article, "The Existential Crisis of the Gifted". I read this article a few weeks ago, and a lot of it resonated with me -- including this opening paragraph: 

The existential crisis for the gifted often begins as a subtle, recurring awareness, a quiet hum that says, "I am more than this." Or some varying version: "I am in the wrong place," "I do not have any equals here," "I am wasting my potential." From time to time, you feel the deep, cellular knowing that you were meant for something more expansive than your current circumstances allow. These instincts are not groundless. Your unconscious has accumulated information about your giftedness for years, from the moments when you grasped concepts others struggled with, when you saw patterns invisible to those around you, when you understood the unspoken dynamics in a room. And yet, here you are, perhaps in a role where you simultaneously burn out and bore out, burdened with responsibilities but given little authority, your days filled with tasks that require you to dim your brightness to fit in.

"In a role where you simultaneously burn out and bore out" is a fairly accurate description of my job at the big law firm. And thinking back on the jobs and other situations I've become dissatisfied with, I can see now that I was in positions that didn't allow me to fully shine, partly because I'm a woman and partly because I'm intelligent. And my acknowledging that doesn't make me a snob.

One of the most precious things I've gained as I've aged is knowing that I have no further need to hide my light under a bushel basket. I learned to do it as a kid and continued to do it for decades -- but no more. I've had a lot of experiences; I know a lot of stuff; I think faster and make mental connections faster than most people. That's just who I am. 

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Anyway, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas, and happy whatever-else-you-may-celebrate!

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These moments of bloggy equality (day/night and so on) have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Welcome, Yule!

Speak up!

This past week, my friend Kim and I attended a presentation at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture here in Santa Fe. The speaker was Diane Bird, an archivist for the museum and one of the curators of the revamped "Here, Now and Always" exhibition. Since its inception in 1997, the idea behind the exhibition has been to explain to museum visitors that Native Americans didn't disappear when the Wild West ended -- they're still here, and their history and culture are way more interesting than those old Westerns ever let on.

Bird is a member of Cochiti Pueblo, and among her responsibilities during the revamp of the exhibition last year was to plan the portion dealing with Native survival, both in the past and today. Tribes and nations from across the Southwest were consulted in the creation of the entire exhibit, and they had input into what would be displayed. Several times during her talk, she mentioned that some of the Pueblos didn't want the Pueblo Revolt mentioned anywhere. 

kieferpix | Deposit Photos

Quick history lesson: Spanish conquistadores first came to New Mexico in 1540, searching for gold (which they never found) and causing a lot of trouble with the Natives who were already here. Coronado and his men eventually departed, but about 60 years later, Don Juan de Oñate brought settlers up from Mexico. Oñate put down a particularly bloody rebellion at Acoma Pueblo, killing or enslaving hundreds and ordering that all men of the pueblo who were 25 or older have one foot cut off. Missionaries came, too, and forced the Natives to convert to Catholicism. By 1680, the Puebloans had had enough. In that year, an Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo leader, Po'pay, led a revolt against the Spanish. It was coordinated by sending runners to each pueblo to give the leaders knotted cords. One knot in each cord was to be undone each day; when all the knots had been untied, it was time to attack. The result was bloody but successful -- the Spaniards were forced to abandon Santa Fe and retreat south to present-day El Paso. The Natives' victory lasted twelve years, at which point the Spaniards returned (how peaceful that return actually was is a story for another time).

Okay, back to the presentation last week. After the curator had said a couple of times that some pueblos didn't want any mention of the Pueblo Revolt, I asked her why. Why wouldn't they want people to know that their ancestors fought back against the invaders and won? 

Bird said it was because people didn't like to talk about it. That first Spanish occupation was a horrible experience; for hundreds of years, it was never spoken of. It wasn't until the pueblos began organizing an annual commemorative run in the late 1990s that Native kids began learning about the Pueblo Revolt.

Then another attendee spoke up. She was Jewish, and she said she was raised to never speak of the Holocaust for the same reason: because it was so painful and horrible and because so many people were killed. 

So many of today's ills are exacerbated by people not speaking up. From the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921 to incidents of domestic violence, heinous acts committed by humans against their fellow humans are hushed up. Sometimes it's deliberate -- those in power don't want the stories of their cruelty to spread. But too often, it's the victims who refuse to speak up, because of fear or embarrassment or pain. They don't want to relive the experience, so they don't. They try to forget. And so, succeeding generations never learn.

But as writer and philosopher George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

Humans have ugly impulses. We commit atrocities on a regular basis. 

It's so easy to forget that. We are routinely lulled into a false sense of security about how good and just and peaceful we are. 

But we can't fall for the lullaby. We should strive to keep all of humanity's behavior in perspective -- even the heinous parts -- and that involves a regular acknowledgement of how awful we can be to one another. 

Because otherwise it will happen again.

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These moments of bloggy remembrance have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!