Museum lovers will find a range of art and cultural museums to experience in Santa Fe. Where to start? Why not first immerse yourselves in Southwestern culture, perhaps as preparation for a visit to an actual reservation, at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. If you've come to experience the sensual pleasures of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting, you'll find them in several Santa Fe venues, including the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts on the downtown Plaza, Santa Fe hub of art and commerce.
Two miles south of Santa Fe, the Museum of International Folk Art contains the largest collection of folk art in the world. Next door, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on Camino Lejo off the Old Santa Fe Trail, is devoted to the traditional arts, which include pottery, weaving, bead work, and moccasin sewing. Your Santa Fe visit needn't be a passive experience; museum-goers are invited to try their hand at weaving and corn-grinding. If you want to see more, buy a multi-day pass, good for admission to four museums.
Santa Fe Shopping
There are more arts and crafts in Santa Fe beyond the adobe walls of its museums. Santa Fe supports some 150 art galleries. From the profusion of shops that densely line Canyon Road and radiate out from the Santa Fe Plaza, to the vivid murals seen indoors and out, art in Santa Fe appears as much a part of life as food and shelter.
Crafts collectors can start their search at the downtown Plaza, one side of which shelters Native American vendors selling jewelry, rugs, and other items. For low prices and serendipitous finds, the flea market next to the Santa Fe Opera on weekends displays everything from rusted boot spurs and antique tin work to fetish necklaces and dried chili peppers.
Antique artifacts of impeccable quality are for sale in Santa Fe at the Morning Star Gallery on Canyon Road. The shop carries beaded moccasins, baskets, pottery, textiles, suede garments, corn-husk bags, kachinas (Hopi spirit dolls), masks, and for those who like to split hairs, a tomahawk.
For the jewelry lover, Santa Fe is treasure laden. Downtown Santa Fe shops feature everything from the traditional -- and ubiquitous -- turquoise-and-silver earrings, belts, bracelets, and bolo ties to intricately woven beaded necklaces to contemporary designs marrying gold and precious colored gemstones.
Santa Fe Side Trips
An essential side trip, the drive from Santa Fe to Taos reveals some of the Southwest's most magical scenery. Undulating brown mesas dotted with evergreen shrubs tumble down to the winding Rio Grande River, then rise up to meet the purplish Sangre de Cristo range. Once you hit town, shop, dine, museum-hop, and simply stroll.
Outside of town, the people of the thousand-year-old Taos Pueblo allow the public in, although picture-taking is discouraged. Pathways leading to homes of those who live on this reservation are off-limits.
If your travels take you to the area in the winter months, also consider a side trip to a ski resort. Ski New Mexico features information on all the state's ski areas.
Throughout Santa Fe and environs, the visual images are so strong that you may be inspired, like the Indians and the Easterners who came before, to create art of your own. So pack a camera or a sketch book, and capture a piece of the sky.
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