Picture-pretty place
Lovely to begin with, Santa Fe is chock-full of galleries. Here’s an artful guide to the capital.
SANTA FE, N.M. — Although it’s considered one of the top art centers of the Western world, Santa Fe has its drawbacks. Like the lack of sidewalks on much of well-known Canyon Road, home to more than 100 galleries. I thought about this when a Pepsi truck driver honked and sternly yelled “Watch out, lady” as I sidestepped a muddy puddle on the cobblestone street. Still, Canyon Road has its charms. This winding, shaded street, just blocks from Santa Fe’s busy plaza, has a picturesque quality and ambience all its own. It’s a pretty place to spend a day wandering in and out of galleries that represent some of the best-known artists in America. It’s just not very pedestrian-friendly. Most people don’t seem to care. In this architecturally distinctive city, site of renowned opera, museums and restaurants, Canyon Road’s weathered half-mile is something to take in stride. The street, which originated as a foot trail into the mountains, now hosts wealthy art collectors from
around the world, with millions of dollars’ worth of art changing hands monthly, according to estimates.
Maggie Hanley, manager of the Santa Fe Gallery Assn., likes to tell the story of the Dubai developer who flew into the municipal airport in August and bought a couple of dozen pieces to dress up his new hotel.
It’s not unusual for people to make multiple purchases. “We tell art lovers who want to start a collection that this is the place to do it,” she said. “It’s a walkable, pleasant destination. A couple can come here with $7,000 and get three to four very good pieces of modern or contemporary art.”
But where to start if you hope to take home a fine-art reminder of the city? During an August visit, I turned to Jorden Nye, a longtime friend and a Santa Fe art consultant, for tips. I also enlisted some of the city’s top gallery owners.
“First of all, Canyon Road isn’t the whole story,” Nye said. “It’s a fun place to visit and has lots of great art, but we have two other concentrations of excellent galleries too,” and he ticked off downtown Santa Fe and the Railyard Arts District.
With 250 galleries, “we pretty much have nearly every type of gallery in the art world: historic Western, contemporary, modern, ethnographic, etc.,” he said.
Add to that eight art museums, including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum — the largest repository of the famous Southwestern artist’s work in the world — and you have an intense art-oriented itinerary. Maybe too intense.
Connie Axton, a gallery grande dame, advises firsttime visitors to pace themselves. If something speaks to you, you don’t want to be too tired to listen.
“Poke your head in; if you don’t see what you like, move on,” Axton said. “Then come back later, after you’ve whittled it down to 10 or even just five galleries, and explore those more thoroughly.” Axton owns Canyon Road’s Ventana Fine Art, one of the city’s largest galleries and a top player in the U.S. art scene.
If galleries intimidate you, shopping Santa Fe-style won’t, John Addison, director of Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, said when Nye and I stopped by.
“That’s the major difference between us and New York and Los Angeles,” Addison said. “In those other cities, you’re almost expected to know what you’re looking at.”
A couple of blocks away, Nancy Hunter, owner of Hunter Kirkland Contemporary Art Gallery, agreed. “Don’t go in if a place makes you feel uncomfortable. And realize that there’s a wide variation of prices in Santa Fe. There’s something for everyone. We want you to be relaxed and enjoy yourself.”
Not everyone is quite so open to browsers, however.
Over in the Railyard Arts District, the newest destination, gallery owner Bill Siegal was quite frank. “I don’t want tourists. We don’t want the kind of traffic they have on Canyon Road and the downtown galleries,” said Siegal, who owns William Siegal Gallery.
Some of the antiquities he sells “go into the millions,” he said. “People who come here are serious art buyers. And that’s the way I want it.”
Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything there.
As a matter of fact, my only Santa Fe purchase was a $64 handcrafted copper necklace from a Pueblo Indian vendor at the Santa Fe Palace of the Governors, where Native American vendors sell arts and crafts daily. I really like it. And I have a fine list of galleries to visit the next time I win the lottery.
travel@latimes.com