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| Spellbound in New Mexico Part I: Millicent! Mabel! Georgia! Agnes! By Augustus Mayhew Before I left for a recent jaunt to Taos and Santa Fe, the Historical Society of Palm Beach County called and invited me to be a guest lecturer in January 2014. With Palm Beach's main industry being Society and women its principal disciples, I thought it might be entertaining to speak on the subject of Wonder Women: Society's Feminine Mystique, a look at the who-what-when-why of the women held captive during the past century by the resort's allure or at least the bridge games. In stark contrast, when I arrived at Taos Canyon, I found myself tracing the footsteps of exceptional women who had broken away from the social molds and expectations that grip Palm Beach. In forging their own uncommon identities, they each became significant legendary figures in cultural history. For Taoseños, social climbing is when locals make note of their elevation levels chatting up their last trek to Tibet or Nepal. One early morning on a drive from Arroyo Seco down towards Taos, I felt chills from the vast panoramic canyon views framed by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, an enthralling Himalayan moment where I felt apart from the world below and part of the magical, mythical, mysterious Taos that was, and still is Shangri-La for those that never leave this life with their head in the clouds. |
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| After a look at the remarkable lives and legacies of Millicent Rogers, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Agnes Martin, I put together my observations on the what-is-what among Taos' 80 art galleries, numerous cafés, superb museums, and nearby mineral springs and mud pools, without a word of any Julia Roberts locals-tell-all stories that TMZ never blogged. From Taos, I took the ear-popping alpine High Road to Santa Fe, where in between wildfires I trekked to Trampas and Chimayo, "the American Lourdes." After checking in to the Hotel St. Francis, where I might have been the only guest without a Chihuahua, I went to LewAllen Contemporary Gallery at The Railyard where Palm Beach sculptor Jane Manus was opening a show. Then, whether hiking Canyon Road or Museum Hill, too often I found myself across the street from the St. Francis at Café Pasqual's "family table," what many consider the town's #1 café, although more than 200 other eateries claim the same top spot. Millicent Rogers (1902-1953) Millicent Rogers Museum 1504 Millicent Rogers Road Taos, New Mexico www.millicentrogers.org, 575-758-2462 |
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| For the Millicent Rogers Museum, one woman's daily treasure hunts for rings, bracelets, belts, and crafts provided the foundation for a significant collection of Southwest culture. Millicent Rogers (1902-1953) may have only spent the last six years of her life in Taos but the coral necklaces and silver crosses she acquired, as well as the pieces created from her own inspired designs, have left a lasting legacy. As the granddaughter of Henry Huttleston Rogers, one of the Standard Oil Trust of 1887's original and largest shareholders, her share of his then $50 million fortune would have easily kept her on the world's best-dressed list and ensconced in Austrian castles and New York penthouses. Instead, following a sandstorm of marriages and a fling with Clark Gable, she donned moccasins and broomstick dresses and searched tribal markets for finely crafted turquoise jewelry. For her, Southwestern Native-American culture was a valuable contribution to America's heritage that should be preserved. Sixty years later, her acquisitions and design creations play a vital role in keeping indigenous crafts and traditions a part of our present culture. |
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| Jewelry Gallery The more than 1,200 pieces of jewelry collected by Millicent Rogers are the heart of the museum's Native American jewelry collection. Rogers' excursions into remote Indian Country resulted in an incomparable assemblage of Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi silverwork, and Pueblo stone and shell jewelry. Here are some views of the collection. |
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| Millicent Rogers Museum Archives & Collections |
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Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Historic Inn & Workshops 240 Morada Lane, Taos www.mabeldodgeluhan.com As generous as she was imperious, Mabel Gansen Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was a noted author, art patron, heiress, salonista, and social martinet, who was known among the Greenwich Village-Provincetown set as the Gertrude Stein of Taos. Her books included Intimate Memories, Winter in Taos, and Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality. She entertained and supported almost an entire generation of the early 20th-century’s most significant artists and writers, including D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham, Willa Cather, Lincoln Steffens, Marsden Hartley, Robinson Jeffers and Carl Jung. While filming Easy Rider, actor Dennis Hopper became aware of the house and bought it, owning it until 1978. Los Gallos, as she called it, is today a 12-acre historic inn and conference center offering retreat-style meetings and artistic, literary, and personal growth workshops. During my visit to Taos, I wanted to stay in the Ansel Adams Room but the entire Inn was fully booked. |
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| Georgia O'Keeffe (1997-1986) Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, 217 Johnson Street, Santa Fe www.okeeffemuseum.org Although Georgia O'Keeffe's last years were spent in a Santa Fe mansion under the watchful eye of her controversial protégé Juan Hamilton, her fascination with New Mexico stretched back 60 years earlier when Mabel Dodge Luhan offered the unknown painter a studio at her Kit Carson Road estate during her first visit to Taos. After years of back-and-forth from the East, it wasn't until after the death of her husband Alfred Stieglitz during the 1940s that she made the Ghost Ranch at Abiquiu, located near Taos, her permanent home and muse. Interestingly, although much of O'Keeffe and her husband's life revolved around photography, I cancelled my visit to O'Keeffe's remote studio and home because I objected to the O'Keeffe Foundation's policy that does not permit "photography or note-taking." However, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in downtown Santa Fe does afford a significant perspective of O'Keeffe's life and work. |
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| Agnes Martin (1912-2004) Minimalist painter Agnes Martin's works may be found in most of the world's major museum collections but her ashes will forever remain in Taos. It was in Taos during the 1950s that Agnes Martin created her first abstract works. And though she left to work in New York at the urging of Betty Parsons, Martin returned to her inspirational Taos. The Harwood Museum's Agnes Martin Gallery features seven of the artist's paintings created in 1993. This octagonal gallery was designed for Martin's work with benches crafted by Donald Judd placed below the central oculus. Living nearby during her later years, she is said to have often visited the gallery. |
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| Next: Spellbound in New Mexico, Part II: Taos, Taos Pueblo, Taos Moderns, Couse Studio, Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs, & Ranchos de Taos. |
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| Photographs by Augustus Mayhew. Augustus Mayhew is the author ofLost in Wonderland – Reflections on Palm Beach. |