La Coalición de Taos brings the composition of an installation that will feature the projected artwork of Anita Rodriguez, local photography, along with pre-recorded statements gathered from the community.

These statements will be reflective of their perspectives on Taos as an evolving community.

The substance of the piece will include a range of community responses to ongoing gentrification including statements from newcomers.

Upon returning to Taos after decades away I found myself marginalized in a way that surprised  me and seemed foreign. The pace of gentrification had accelerated. The plaza, once a meeting place for the community was now dominated by tourist-oriented commerce and nonsense. A newspaper once an organ for vibrant local communication now seemed to eclipse locals and their concerns while accelerating development, real estate sales and frenzied tourist attraction. Anecdotes from the locals abound with stories about newcomers, largely from Texas, California, and the East Coast reveal apparent ignorance and a lack of respect for other cultures despite the best of intentions.

The force and repetition of the binary perception that Taoseños are either Hispanic or Native American reveals more about American preoccupations than our lived reality. The insistence that one is Spanish because we may speak Spanish and have some Spanish customs obscures centuries of miscegenation/intermarriage that we continue to experience while diluting the fact that we are indigenous to this region. The term Genízaro may best describe the ethnic and cultural experience of many Hispanic New Mexicans.

Ours continues to be a reality that continues to combine several cultural and historical experiences. Though no longer via Mexico and Spain that experience has come into the realm of what it means to be an American. That syncretism-combination of many cultures, religions and ways of thought- remains an integral aspect of what this place signifies. We are a land- based people maintaining centuries-old traditions such as the acequias, an irrigation system developed during Roman and Moorish occupation of Spain and brought here by the conquistadores. We now find that our knowledge and usage of the land seems to be ignored for the convenience of tourism, development and the idle pleasure of the well-heeled who may find this place “magical and beautiful,” but ignore and overlook the rights of centuries old inhabitants.

This year’s Paseo Project invites us to “remark upon the notion of our fellow humans.” To that end this piece “Lo que no se dice/What is unspoken” seeks to reveal both intimate and public perceptions that everyday people in Taos may think and feel about the changes we are experiencing. It was created to encourage conversations among disparate groups who may find both eye opening and opportunity for talking to the other half.

About the Artists:

Anita Rodriguez

I was born (1941) in a Taos that exists only in memory now. It’s hard to

express how isolated we were, how intense our xenophobia and our provincialism. First, we were forgotten by Spain, then we were forgotten by Mexico, and then forgotten again by the United States. Our only wealth was beauty. We were rich in the landscape and the diversity of our cultures. When the century turned a group of brilliant artists found our goldmine of subject matter, founded an art colony in our midst, and the solitude of centuries was ended. Taos grew into a town that had 200 art galleries and became one of the most important art markets and tourist destinations in the country. It was like Rip Van Winkle, Taos woke up to find itself in the twentieth century in my parent’s generation.

My mother, Grace Graham King was from Austin, and came to study art with Walter Ufer in 1935 and met my father, Alfredo Antonio Rodriguez in his drugstore on the plaza. He made her what must have been a very good chocolate soda. They came from different worlds. My paternal grandfather was from Parral, Chihuahua, and my paternal grandmother from Taos. My maternal grandparents were from Austin, Texas and Kentucky. But chocolate overcame all the improbabilities, and a year after that soda they were married.

Taos was an almost entirely adobe town then, and there was an intense presence of art from diverse cultures and my earliest memories are saturated with all the color and diversity. The religious art that is now in private and museum collections was still in the churches, santuarios and chapels. There was a much denser calendar of religious processions, traditions and dances in both the neighboring Indian pueblo and the Hispanic villages, and there were colorful ceremonial objects, costumes, banners, altars and of course, the galleries and the artist’s studios I visited with my parents and where I took classes – there was art everywhere and I wanted to be an artist, I knew I was one.

In 1957 I traveled to Mexico City as an exchange student and fell in love with Mexico. Posada, Diego Rivera, Frieda Kahlo, Siquieros, the Churregueresco and Baroque architecture, the colors, the artesanea, the pre-Columbian culture. I knew I that someday I wanted to live in Mexico. But I returned to the United States where I studied art at Colorado College, the University of Denver, and the University of California, where I met my daughter’s father.

In 1965 my daughter Shemai was born, and I returned with her to New Mexico, our family, the clear air and security of a rural life. I started an adobe finishing business based on the oral technology of traditional female builders (the enjarradoras), and ran a business for about twenty years, painting only in my head, waiting until I could take the risk and paint professionally.

In 1989 Shemai left home, and I decided to retire from the construction business and become a full-time painter. Within a year I was making a living as a painter. In 1996 I moved to Mexico to paint and live in Guanajuato, where I lived for 13 years until returning to Taos in October of 2010 – to stay.

I am currently represented by Open Space on the Taos plaza, by TurnStyle at the corner of Placitas and Ledoux a block from Taos plaza, and by appointment at my studio.

About the Artists:

Marcos Martinez, Theater Artist

Mr. Martinez has acted professionally in film, television and the contemporary and classical stage in the US and abroad. His work includes acting, teaching, and directing plays in Spanish, English and other languages. He co-founded La Compañía de Teatro de Alburquerque in 1979 with Jose Rodriguez and other actors, and later served as artistic director for three years 1988-91. He holds an MA from UNM and is a graduate of the Juilliard School’s Drama Division (Group 12). A master teacher of the Suzuki Actor Training Method, a physical theatre training technique which asserts the primacy of the body for developing a high quality standard in actors. He has performed, directed plays and taught Suzuki Actor Training Method workshops in the U.S. and extensively abroad including Ghana, Israel, Bosnia and St. Petersburg. His publications include book chapters on Chicano Theatre in the U.S. with UNM Press, Routledge and articles about Suzuki Method for the Suzuki Company of Toga, Japan and other Asian publications including the Shanghai Theatre Academy where he was invited to lecture (2018). Recently retired (2018) from the CSU where he founded the Theatre Program at San Marcos (1992), Professor Martinez continued his theatrical endeavors with Suzuki workshops in London and theatre festival participation in Colombia and Spain until the advent of Covid-19.

Daniel Sonis is a Filmmaker, Musician, and Music Producer. Currently his filmmaking is focused on social justice documentary, through which he strives to create positive change in our community and our world. His other filmmaking interests include cinematic experimental short form videos, and direct political action through supporting political candidates and creating issue oriented social media campaigns. His collaboration with New Mexico Poet Laureate Levi Romero, “Going Home Homeless”, won the "Local’s Choice Award" at the Taos Shortz Film Festival. Another collaboration with Levi Romero and Olivia Romo,“Bendicìon del Agua” was featured at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. As a music composer he composed a score for a theatrical production that won the LA Weekly’s "Production of the Year" award and has composed for orchestra, with one if his composistions being featured at the LA County Museum of Art’s “Sundays at Four” concert series. He has also engineered and produced film scores that have appeared on PBS and at the Sundance Film Festival.

Alejandro "DroAudio" Chacon, Sound Engineer

Raised in Taos.  At 18, Alejandro decided to embark on a career in Audio Production.  He attended the Art Institute of Seattle and obtained his Audio Degree in 2000 and has Produced/Engineered various artists during his 25-year career. Additionally, Alejandro played in several bands in his twenties. Alejandro has since opened 2 (Taos/Albuquerque) locations for his recording studio, Notion Records.  For booking information please call 505-977-2797