A different LENS
Santa Fe-based Chemehuevi photographer Cara Romero is a storyteller sans words
Cara Romero’s “The Last Indian Market” beckons part parody, myth and homage, an assemblage of 12 “disciples” framing a Buffalo Man as its magnetic centerpiece.
The Santa Fe-based Chemehuevi photographer directed this playful take on both the Santa Fe Indian Market and Leonardo Da Vinci at the Coyote Cafe in 2015.
The figural lineup incorporates a dozen who’s who of Native artists. There’s famed film director Chris Eyre, Romero’s husband; the celebrated Cochiti Pueblo potter Diego Romero, self-cast as Judas; and bead and performance artist Marcus Amerman in the central role of a furry Christ figure. Indian Market groupies can also spot jeweler Kenneth Johnson; painter Darrell Vigil Gray; Jemez Pueblo potter Kathleen Wall; printmaker/painter Linda Lomahafetewa; designer Pilar Agoyo; and painter America Meredith.
Romero stitched the print together from five photographs.
“It was a parody,” she acknowledged. “I really wanted to portray the people of our time. It was an artistic statement that we understand pop culture.”
A Santa Fe Indian Market artist since 2009, Romero has won multiple awards and has exhibited at the National Museum of the American Indian; the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture; and in Britain’s American Museum.
Her great break came when the Smithsonian Institution bought her 30-by-30-inch mounted archival pigment photograph “Water Memory” at the 2015 Santa Fe Indian Market.
Shot in the swimming pool at Santa Fe’s El Rey Inn, its turquoise water surges around two figures dress in Santa Clara Pueblo corn dance finery. The viewer is left to interpret its meaning. Is the liquid abode a womb-like reference? Or are the figures drowning as they float to the floor? Are they immersed, yet still breathing thanks to some oceanic deity?
The photo straddles twin
““IT WAS A PIVOTAL PIECE, IT WAS A WAY TO EXPRESS OUR CATASTROPHIC IDEA OF CLIMATE CHANGE. IT BECAME ABOUT LIFE CYCLES AND THE PROTECTION OF MOTHER EARTH.” CARA ” ROMERO “Coyote Tales No. 1” by Cara Romero