Santa Fe's newest Living Treasures
Muralist, painter and jeweler honored for contributions to community
Award ceremony today to honor muralist, painter and jeweler for their contributions to the community.
Gilberto Guzman’s murals — richly colored tributes to the people and cultures of New Mexico — adorn prominent places throughout Santa Fe: The Halpin Building on Guadalupe Street, the state Capitol, the Bataan Memorial Building. His paintings have appeared in international shows and in an Absolut Vodka TV commercial.
He has a box full of magazine write-ups giving him high praise for his artwork.
Still, he said in a recent interview, he was blown away by an honor he will receive Sunday. Guzman is one of three newly named Santa Fe Living Treasures, nominated by friends and family and chosen by a community organization that has been publicly recognizing Santa Fe-area residents over the age of 70 for more than three decades.
“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten an award,” said Guzman, who celebrated his 85th birthday last week. “Oh, my goodness. I feel really good. … To be acknowledged, it changes things.”
Joining Guzman at Sunday afternoon’s award ceremony will be Priscilla Hoback, a Santa Fe native who also is known for her Southwestern art, both pottery and paintings, and Faustin “Tino” Chavez, a longtime jeweler, as well as a business and community leader, who is an artist in his own right, creating precious-metal and gemstone legacies for customers celebrating their most personal moments.
‘I use my whole body. … It’s like a dance.’
Guzman, who grew up in East Los Angeles, didn’t know until he was 22 years old that he had a knack for drawing.
“We didn’t do that stuff,” he said. “None of us had any education. I only went to the 11th grade.”
One day, as he set out to sketch an image on a magazine cover — a man holding a U.S. flag — he discovered his talent for art, and it suddenly became a central part of his life. But it was something he did for his own enjoyment, after clocking out from a shift as a dishwasher or a day working in a machine shop.
Eventually, Guzman made his way to the San Francisco Academy of Art, and he graduated at the age of 40, armed with an expanded knowledge of art forms and new skills. San Francisco changed his life in other ways, as well. During his time there, he met Antonia Padilla, a nurse from Santa Fe. “I fell in love with her,” he said, explaining how he ended up in the City Different in the early 1970s. Padilla became his wife.
“When I came to Santa Fe,” Guzman said, “that’s when I really became a painter.”
He started painting murals here. “That’s when I feel really good, is when I’m on a wall,” he said. “… That’s where I really belong.”
For a moment, Guzman pondered his love for mural painting and why it became such an essential part of his art career.
“I think it’s the whole idea that there’s a lot of different figures there,” he said. “It tells a story. It’s very physical. I use my whole body. … It’s like a dance.”
Guzman cites his Gold Star Mothers mural at the Bataan Memorial Building in Santa Fe, painted in honor of the mothers of the New Mexico men who lost their lives in the Bataan Death March during World War II, as the public mural that means the most to him. During a dedication ceremony for the painting, he met some Gold Star Mothers and survivors of the march.
“I think that’s the most important one I ever did,” Guzman said. “I think that’s the most moving one.”
A true woman of the West
Hoback, 78, said she was taken by surprise when she learned she had been named a Living Treasure. “My friends can really keep a secret,” she said with a laugh.
The Santa Fe Living Treasures Committee describes Hoback as a woman who “epitomizes the essence of New Mexico through her art, her lifestyle, her history.”
She is a writer, a storyteller, a teacher, a businesswoman, a horse whisperer, a master gardener and an earth mother, the organization says of her in a news release on Sunday’s event.
She’s also an excellent chef, Hoback told The New Mexican, thanks to nearly 70 years of being involved with The Pink Adobe restaurant on Old Santa Fe Trail. Her mother owned the popular restaurant, specializing in New Mexican cuisine, and Hoback later became a partner in the business.
“I think red chile is the food of the gods,” she said.
Hoback grew up on Canyon Road — “in every sense of the word” — and later owned a pottery gallery. But about 40 years ago, she decided to move to a historic adobe home on a farm in Galisteo, where she has horses and tends to organic gardens.
“Canyon Road got so busy,” she said. “I needed a little more space.”
Out in Galisteo, Hoback continued her artwork — earthy, fired-clay portraits of horses, antelope, buffalo and other wildlife vital to ancient people. She even started the annual Galisteo Studio Tour, held this weekend.
Hoback digs her clay in the Galisteo Basin. It is part of her effort to “reflect the region” through her artwork, she said, “the very energy and spirit of it.”
A lifetime of service and leadership
Now retired from the jewelry business, 74-year-old Chavez, an avid golfer, often can be found at the city’s course, Marty Sanchez Links de Santa Fe, near the Municipal Recreation Complex. The two public recreation facilities are a point of pride for Chavez, who played a key role in their planning process.
“That was an immense project that the city needed,” said Chavez, who was a cochairman of the committee whose work paved the way for the MRC and the golf
course.
That was one of Chavez’s many community contributions, with his service ranging from volunteer participation on school parent committees, local government committees, the Fiesta Council and the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. He also has mentored teen employees in his jewelry shops.
“I always kept in their minds that when they finished working for me … that I wanted them to elevate themselves,” he said — and indeed, “most of them became very successful people.”
Chavez said he quickly became involved in the community in his own youth.
As a clerk at a jewelry store in one of his earliest jobs, he was encouraged by a manager to join the local Junior Chamber of Commerce.
His next significant step came in 1973, when he was chosen to portray Don Diego de Vargas in that year’s Fiesta de Santa Fe celebrations. “That was probably the most eventful year of my life,” he said, with one request after another for his service to community groups.
A few years later, Chavez and his wife, Dolores, opened Chavez Jewelers, which was the oldest shop in the DeVargas Center until it closed last year, after 40 years in business.
The work was very satisfying, Chavez said, because he was providing his customers with “the most momentous piece of jewelry of their life.” Many came with their own designs. Chavez and his crew crafted their ideas into reality. “That was a lot of fun,” he said. He credits his wife of 52 years for much of his success: “I wouldn’t be who I am without her.”
Chavez, who has been honored many times in his life, said he was so moved by the Living Treasures designation that he was “speechless.”
“I feel like I’m in wonderful company,” Chavez added, “and kind of amazed that I’m in their company.”