Dorothy Newkirk Stewart:Santa Fe Artist and Printmaker

That’s one of my favorite Ben Folds songs. Has nothing to do with my situation except that I am back down to earth after flying west in my trusty Mazda CX-9.

Yesterday felt like I was still circling the runway, wandering the streets of Santa Fe in a disembodied state. Like the Stewart sisters in 1921, I dined on Burro Alley at a little Mexican restaurant called Los Magueyes, which in English means Agave or maguey cactus. Although there were no sheep milling around in this century,I was enchanted by a toddler trying out his legs. I sat outside, enjoying the warm sunshine and delicious chips and salsa, until the wind picked up.Soon,thunder claps and ominous dark clouds dumped a deluge of much needed rain on the city’s patched desert soil.

The temperature dropped twenty degrees, but I wasn’t ready to go back to my hotel, so I continued my jaunt, dodging intermittent showers by ducking into galleries along Canyon Road. The Adobe Gallery, which has been in that location since 1957, was my first stop. The owner, Alexander, schooled me on his collection of “Bambi” art that decorated the plaster walls. Unfamiliar with the term, I learned that was the term given to early indigenous art due its’ two dimensional appearance. Similar to that of Walk Disney cartoons!

Then to the Museum of History where I purchased Santa Fe’s Fonda to read as I waited out a downpour. An interesting and informative book, I learned that the original name of the famous La Fonda hotel was “The Exchange” in the 1800s. Billy the Kid was once a busboy at the young age of 12, before he took up robbing stage coaches.

But today, the work of hanging the show began. With Jacob’s help, we began fastening the lines to the hanging system and placing hooks at various heights on the string. Since there are five categories of prints in this collection, we decided to group them according to the category, rather than their size. Below is the initial display and tomorrow, we will make adjustments.