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Artists of New Mexico Traditions The National Heritage Fellows Museum of New Mexico Press
Artists of
New Mexico Traditions explores the lives, arts, communities, and cultures of fifteen New Mexico traditional artists, all of them honored by the National Endowment for the Arts with National Heritage Fellowships
for lifetime achievement in folk and traditional arts. Begun in 1982, the National Heritage Fellowships are given to permanent
United States residents "to honor and preserve our nation's diverse cultural
heritage." New Mexico has a rich artistic landscape dating from prehistoric times
through Spanish, Mexican, and American
settlement, each period adding its own unique character and all of them combining to create an arts heritage unsurpassed in
the United States. In 2009, the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, part of the Museum
of New Mexico system, opened the exhibition, "A Century of Masters: The NEA National Heritage Fellows
of New Mexico," which stimulated Artists of New Mexico Traditions. The author videotaped interviews with all living National Heritage Fellows from New
Mexico, with the family and artistic heirs of deceased fellows, and with respected arts authorities in the state. These interviews
became the foundation for the book, and a companion documentary video, "Living Traditions: Folk Artists of New Mexico,"
which premieres at the 2012 Santa Fe Film Festival. The individual artists featured in the book and documentary are modern masters
of widespread traditions that they occasionally taught themselves or, more typically, learned
from family members and others in their pueblos, Hispano villages, and other communities. These
traditional arts, which the National Heritage Fellows continue to practice, preserve, and perpetuate
among succeeding generations, arise from and reflect the diverse cultures for
which New Mexico is well-known. The fellows also represent many other accomplished artists in the state. The arts that New Mexico National Heritage Fellows practice include colcha embroidery, music, pottery, Rio Grande weaving, saint making (santeros), storytelling, straw appliqué, tinwork, and woodcarving. The
artists live in cities like Albuquerque and Santa Fe, in Hispano villages like Chimayo
and Cordova, or on pueblos--Cochiti, Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan), and Santa
Clara. Below is the list of all of New Mexico's National Heritage Fellows: · George López, 1982,
Córdova · Margaret Tafoya, 1984, Santa Clara
Pueblo ·
Cleofes Vigil, 1984, San Cristobal · Helen Cordero, 1986,
Cochiti Pueblo ·
Emilio and Senaida Romero, 1987, Santa Fe · Frances Varos Graves, 1994, Ranchos de Taos ·
Ramón José López, 1997, Santa Fe · Roberto and Lorenzo Martínez,
2003, Albuquerque ·
Eliseo and Paula Rodríguez, 2004, Santa Fe · Charles Carrillo, 2006, Santa
Fe ·
Esther Martínez, 2006, Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo · Irvin Trujillo, 2007, Chimayó
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