2018 Master’s Award for Lifetime Achievement
Santero Carlos Otero shapes a broader understanding of his culture
T he term “renaissance man” comes to mind in describing Carlos Otero. It’s not because he claims the status for himself. It’s because he earnestly and joyfully lives the life of a man with many talents: as a santero, historian, musician, composer, singer, poet and retired teacher of Spanish, New Mexico culture, architecture and industrial arts. Little wonder he is now also winner of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society’s 2018 Master’s Award for Lifetime Achievement.
To win this award, the recipient must have participated in Spanish Market for more than 20 years and received honors from the market and other exhibitions. The winner must have taught, promoted and raised awareness of Spanish New Mexican artistic traditions and culture and must have had art accepted for private and museum collections. For Otero, those are just the outlines of a life solidly filled in with creative achievement and service to others. At a reception honoring Otero in June, attracting an overflow crowd of admirers, Spanish Market director Catherine Owens and others lauded his “devotion to devotional art.”
“I am so honored by this award,” he says, “because it is chosen by the masters.” The professional recognition comes at a time when Otero faces serious health issues. “Because of my cancer, my mobility has been impacted and my energy level is lower, but I have things that perk me up, and I have more good days than bad.”
Otero can indeed be heartened not only by his well-earned reputation as an artist but also — and most important to him — by his passion for connecting with his heritage through his art. The work of a santero “is not just the painting or carving of an image,” he says. “It’s the stories of the santos and what they mean to us today. Saints were real people in real time who make a difference in how we live our lives.”
For Otero, Santo Nino de Atocha, an image of the Christ Child originating in Atocha, Spain, carries special meaning and receives his daily prayers. A Santo Nino bulto with a tiny hidden compartment for a written poem or prayer was one of the first pieces Otero submitted to Spanish Market in 1996. “Among the people in my culture, the devotion to Santo Nino was especially active when young men went to war in the forties,” says Otero, a Vietnam veteran. “The Santo Nino protected prisoners and people away from home.”
On the road to what would become his own calling, Otero constructed furniture and cabinets, “and I used to fool around with a pocket knife,” he says. He carved the Santo Nino with no intention of starting a career as a santero. He was aware of his mother’s and father’s employment with theWorks Progress Administration in the 1930s, and he proudly points out a small table in his living room that his mother, now 92, made during that time. In 1996, when he retired from Albuquerque Public Schools after 23 years, he pondered what to do next. Independently of each other, his wife and his mother helped him find the answer.
The first clue revealed itself when he accompanied his father to San Francisco for medical tests. His wife, Vickie, “knew I would be waiting a lot in doctors’ offices with nothing to do,” Otero says, “so she put a little log into my suitcase. I just started carving.” Santo Nino emerged. Back home, he carved a dramatically detailed 4-foot-tall crucifix.
Then came an act of motherly intervention. “Alcario Otero, about
a fifth cousin of mine, who is a master santero, came to the door one day. He said, ‘My mom saw your mom at church, and she said you were carving. I’d like to see what you’ve done.’” When Alcario saw the crucifix and Santo Nino, he urged Carlos to enter them in the 1996 Traditional Spanish Market. When the jury accepted his works, there began his succession of awards — four Best of Show honors, numerous first-place awards and other recognition in juried shows. Recently he won his third Bishop’s Award at Sacred Heart Spanish Market in Gallup. Entrants were asked to create images of the Holy Family, but he carved out his own interpretation. “To the Holy Family I added God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit — a Trinity on earth and a Trinity in heaven.”
Honoring history and heritage
“Watch out, he’ll give you a history lesson,” his wife jokes as Otero launches into exactly that. “I love art, but history is my passion,” he says. He proves it by reciting — in rapid-fire succession, without taking a breath — the surnames of 83 families to whom he is related. He is the eldest of 60 cousins on his mother’s side alone. Both he and Vickie, classmates in the first grade, grew up in Los Lunas and descend from the Spanish founding families of New Mexico. A consummate storyteller, he recounts the life of an ancestor, Francisco Gomez Vicente, who, as a Spanish military officer, was one of the first settlers in Santa Fe in 1610. He was interim governor of New Mexico from 1641 to 1642, until his removal by political enemies. “He was accused of secretly practicing Judaism, his property was taken and he was jailed,” Otero says. The facts of Gomez’s religious beliefs are uncertain. Otero shares the story to emphasize the diverse cultural threads that weave the patterns of past and present in New Mexico.
Once Otero decided to become a santero, he studied the art of Old World masters, looking in particular at how hands and faces were rendered. He carves in cottonwood to be faithful to “New Mexico’s golden age of santero making, the 1700s and 1800s. Many woodcarvers are producing works with more curvature, more flowing lines, while the more folky pieces are more linear. But they are doing both very well. I’m in between, but pretty much using the linear folk style,” Otero says, “though I might add a little something inspired by my architectural interests.”
Otero’s art is only part of his story. He is also a self-taught musician, playing the violin, mandolin, cello, guitar and harmonica. He and Vickie, who have been married for 48 years, sing duets and participate in the music ministry of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Peralta. On display there is his 14-by-14-foot altarpiece flanked by watchful angels serving as candleholders. As an educator, he has taught area instructors how to teach bulto carving, retablo painting and other art forms. He has presented cultural programs and after-school workshops for children. He wrote the song “Roots of Heritage,” used in presentations of the history of Valencia County. His songs and poems are preserved in the University of New Mexico archives.
“Carlos Otero has gone above and beyond in spreading his knowledge of the Spanish colonial arts,” says Mel Rivera, winner of the 2017 Master’s Award. “He has gotten his own grants to educate schoolchildren about the Spanish colonial arts and traditions. This is what makes him special.”
Otero’s diverse life experiences also enrich his art. In 1967 and 1968, Otero served in Vietnam, in the fire-and-rescue unit of a training base
for pilots. “Any time bombs or mortar rockets came in, they were aimed toward the planes. People ran for the bunkers for safety, except for the fire-and-rescue officers. We ran toward the burning planes. I’ve seen C-130s [troop transport planes] turn into liquid and drip onto the pavement.” Those searing images lingered after Otero returned home. He had started college, eventually receiving a master’s degree in bilingual and bicultural education. In 1970 he married Vickie, and they started their family of four children. But frightening health issues marred this time of personal development. He began suffering chest pains, had trouble breathing and became paralyzed on one side. In his poem “Vietnam Nightmare” he asks, “What is this that steals my senses, scrambles up my brain? At night it steps right out of me, stares at me with disdain.” After numerous tests, the diagnosis was anxiety, better known today as post-traumatic stress disorder. With counseling, the symptoms disappeared, freeing him to focus his poetry on his faith and culture.
Sacred space
To enter the Otero house, located on the west side of Albuquerque, is to step into a rarified world. The Pueblo revival-style home sits on a ridge that gives it a lofty perch over surrounding structures, an appropriate position considering the celestial objects of art inside. The 4-foot crucifix that was among Otero’s first entries into Spanish Market presides from its dominant position over the fireplace. Every wall, every surface, every corner of the multilevel home is adorned with colorful retablos, bultos and altars. The santos, with finely crafted, expressive eyes, hint at their stories of sacrifice and sorrow. Rather than create a virtual museum to his own work, however, Otero uses his home to display the works of others — colleagues, friends and family, including grandchildren Alianna, Victoriana and Joshua.
A visitor to the home will be greeted energetically by Vickie, a full partner in the Otero creative enterprise, described by friends as the loving force behind her husband’s achievements. She generously serves refreshments, but the snacks must share table space with an altarpiece awaiting repair and paints made from natural ingredients that Otero grinds by hand.
Among all the artwork, Santo Nino de Atocha stands ready to hear the prayer of each humble supplicant, as recited by Otero: “Take my afflictions and turn them into joy.”
He adds: “The prayer to Santo Nino says it all. We still need him today.”